Week One: Poster critique

For our homework task we had to find examples of our own and analyse them, following the same process as we did in class, where we would look at the what the ihi was and what the wihi was, as well as further contributing factors toward the what message the poster was conveying. 

Definitions taken from the blog: 

Ihi can be described as an individual’s essential force, charisma, power or charm
– which emanates throughout the creative process.

Wehi, on the other hand, highlights the internalised feelings that occur in response to ihi. 

"Sour Lemon Candy" 

Ihi: The creater is portraying very sour lollies, that will make it feel as though the lolly is eating you rather than you eating it, this is shown in the subject matter.  

Wihi: The initial feeling I get from this is pain and uncomfortableness but also kind of a challenge that entices me to try the candy to see if it is really even that sour. 

The strategy used is can be seen as Satire, where it is ironic that the hand is squeezing the head, rather than the human squeezing the lolly. The yellow reinforces the lemon flavour of the candy, as well as enforcing this zest, sour feeling, straight away you get sour, tangy connotations. The way in which the hand is squeezing the face reinforces the idea of that jaw clenching feeling you get when you eat something sour. 

"Sensodyne: Resistance, cold"

ihi: Putting the product across as a cold sensation on the teeth. 

Wihi: Automatically I feel cold and fresh.

The strategy used here is Subversion, where the creater has initially taken the idea of the tooth and manipulated it into the shape of a polar beer as well to reinforce this idea of coldness.  What further reinforces this idea is the cold blue colour of the background which we automatically associate with coldness. The fact that everything is so bold and pure gives the impression of freshness too. 

"JK Tyres"

ihi: The creater is presenting an idea of road safety 

wihi: straight away I get a feeling of being safe, gripped though the use of the velcro I feel as though the tyre and the road represented by it are not going to part easily.

The strategy used for this poster is subversion, and also a bit of homage. I see subversion in the way that the creater has manipulated the shape of the velcro rolled to look like a tyre and I see homage in the way the "velcro tyres" are set up like a typical tyre add, where seeing tyres stacked like that in a tyre advertisement is normal, its not until you look closely that you realise they are not tyres.